In a heartbreaking case, a man reportedly died outside a government hospital in MP’s Guna after lying under a tree, untreated, for about 12 hours. This was sad because his wife did not have Rs 5 to purchase a ticket (parcha) for his admission.
TOI reports her as saying that no one listened to her pleas for help even after her husband died. It was more than an hour after that that someone helped with the body.
Former Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath took to Twitter to express his anger over the matter. He tweeted, ‘This is not how I had left the state. You were busy in the auction of MLAs but a woman in Guna, carrying a toddler, kept pleading all day to save her husband’s life. He wasn’t treated because he didn’t have Rs 5 to buy a parcha. He gasped to death in front of his wife. Is this the condition of the state under the Shivraj government?’
Meanwhile, the Guna administration has ordered a magisterial probe.
While local reports claim that she didn’t have Rs 5 to ‘buy a parcha’, Civil surgeon SK Shrivastav said getting a consultation ticket is free in government hospitals.
The woman reportedly said that she was asked to pay for the ticket and she had to go back to arrange cash.
The victim Sunil Rajak’s wife Aarti said he fell ill on Wednesday. She left him under a tree to get formalities of admission done. “I went into the hospital and someone outside the counter told me that I would have to pay for the ‘parcha’ (slip). I kept telling people that he is still breathing and can be saved, but no one came to help. Even after he died, I kept waiting for an hour before anyone came around to help,” TOI quoted Aarti as saying.
It is a shame on our system if the message sent out is that the Rs 5 admission ticket amount is more important than a person’s life.
